As part of „Praxislabor 2026” of „AG Digitale Geschichtswissenschaft“

Encyclopaedias, lexicons and handbooks are important publication formats in the historical disciplines. But how can these kind of works be transferred into the digital space?

The Open Encyclopedia System (OES) is a web-based open source software designed for the creation, publication and maintenance of open-access academic, lemma-based online publications such as encyclopaedias, lexicons and knowledge portals.

The workshop will provide a practical introduction to OES and show the potential of digital publishing beyond classic print and PDF solutions.

Using concrete application examples such as various online encyclopedias and the information, learning and teaching platform "HISTOFOX", the tools, modules and functions of OES are presented and aspects of step-by-step and collaborative publishing are illustrated. In the practical part of the workshop, the participants create their own articles in a training environment and test linking strategies with structured data.

A joint event of the OES team OES team (Freie Universität Berlin, FUB-IT) and the team of HISTOFOX (NFDI4Memory, Task Area Data Literacy) 

Moderation:

• Gesche Wahlen, Freie Universität Berlin
• Anne Voigt, Freie Universität Berlin
• Marina Lemaire, University of Trier

Key information:

• Date: 03 December 2026 - 2.00-3.30 pm
• Location: Online via Webex (sending the meeting link after registration)
• Target group: Historians interested in alternative, digital publication formats
• Participation: Registration via e-mail to info@open-encyclopedia-system.org